1. Cruelty in England

UK court convicts couple for piercing cat's ear

LONDON, Dec 23 1999 [Reuters] - An English couple lay within a whisker of gaol terms on Thursday after a court found them guilty of animal cruelty for giving their cat Tigger the ultimate pet accessory - a pierced ear.

Bradford Magistrates Court was told the fake diamond stud had left the cat in a flap. It was due to sentence Simon and Melanie Whittaker later on Thursday.

The couple face a potential maximum six-month gaol term and a £5,000 ($US 8,053) fine.

The RSPCA [Royal Society for the Protection of Animals] embraced the ruling, saying the pair should never be allowed to have pets again.

"We'll be looking for them to be banned from keeping animals ever again," an RSPCA spokeswoman said. "It was very cruel and unnecessary and we are happy they have been found guilty.

From the Leeds Evening Post, December 24, 1999 (p9)

Whittaker [31] was found guilty of two charges of animal cruelty - one for piercing Tigger and one for not seeking veterinary attention. His wife Melanie, 41, was found guilty of not seeking veterinary attention for the cat.

From the Yorkshire Post, December 24, 1999 (p4)

Vet Graham Codd, who examined Tigger, said the cat was in extreme pain. "The ear was swollen and inflamed.

"I have never seen anything like it before. It would have been extremely painful."

Mr Codd said the ear was a very sensitive part, made up of a layer of cartilage between two layers of skin.

The couple were fined £200 ($US320) and £100 ($US160) in February 2000, and forbidden to own any pets for two years. Simon Whittaker was put on probation and threatened with prison if he breached its terms.

Bradford has set up a baby circumcision centre funded by the National Health Service.

2. Dogs may be protected in Western Australia...

The West AustralianFebruary 8, 2000

Shorter : Jo Lamm with tail-docked boxer pups and mother Chloe.

Labour wants banon tail dockingBy Sean CowanTHE State Opposition has called for major amendments to the Government's new Animal Welfare Bill, including one which would outlaw the tail docking of dogs except for medical reasons.
Labour animal welfare spokesman Mark McGowan said tail docking was cruel and was acceptable only in certain circumstances, such as injury to the tail.
But Ken Friday, who has bred fox terriors for 28 years, said tail docking prevented the dog ending up on the operating table later in life.
"If the tails get damaged they have to have them removed later on, so we are saving them that trauma."
Puppies were usually docked when they were only two days old, before nerve sensitivity had developed, he said.
Forty-three working dog breeds had their tails docked, including old english sheep dogs, terriers and gun dogs.
Mr McGowan also called for changes to the way the RSPCA operated. He also said an overriding duty of care should apply to the Bill.

MKs [Members of the Knesset or Parliament]
showed yesterday that they are concerned not only about elections, but also
about the suffering of animals. The snipping of the body tissue of animals,
such as tails and ears, for beautification purposes was banned by the
Knesset last night, under an amendment to the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals Law.

The maximum penalty for violation of the law - which also applies to
veterinarians - is three years' imprisonment.

The law, initiated by MK Zevulun Or-Lev (National Religious Party) said
owners decide how their pets should look without taking into consideration
the "great suffering" the animals endure in the process. Commonly, he said,
the tails and ears of pure-bred dogs are cut to achieve success in pet shows.

Voting against the law were three Shinui MKs. Yossi Paritzky called the law "ridiculous."

The infant circumcision rate in Israel is close to 100%.

4. Doctor struck off for agreeing to circumcise girls - claims he agreed to cut boys.

A GP who was caught on film offering to carry out an illegal circumcision on
an 8-year old girl was struck off the medical register yesterday.

The General Medical Council found Dr Abdul Ahmed guilty of serious
professional misconduct after he offered to perform the operation for 50.
The GMC dismissed Dr Ahmed's claim that he believed he was discussing the
circumcision of boys.

Dr Ahmed, 63, was exposed by an Asian TV researcher working for Channel 4
programme on female circumcision called 'Cutting the Rose'. The woman
posed as a mother who wanted her daughter circumcised and visited Dr Ahmed
aat his home in Manchester with a video camera hidden in a handbag.
She explained that in her home country of Somalia it was traditional to have
young girls circumcised. On the tape, although initially reluctant, Dr
Ahmed is heard arranging the operation at 4 pm that day, adding: 'This is
not free -- you have to pay for it.' He agreed to perform the surgery on 2
other girls at 50 each.

The surgery was never carried out but the taped meeting was later broadcast.
Dr Ahmed was interviewed by police but said the conversation had been about
the circumcision of boys.

Giving the GMC's verdict yesterday, Professor Denis McDevitt, chairman of
the professional conduct committee, said: 'The committee is appalled by the
evidence they have heard of your offer to perform an abhorrent mutilation
and illegal operation on female children.
We do not find credible your account given both in the police interview and
your evidence today that you believed you were discussing the circumcision
of boys.'

The committee, which heard tapes of telephone calls and watched viseo-tapes
of the meetings, took the rare measure of suspending Dr Ahmed, now a senior
partner in a GP practice in Stoke Newington, London, from the register
immediately to protect the public. He has 28 days to appeal.
The GP later insisted that part of an audio tape in which he said he would
not carry out female circumcision was missing. He maaintained that the
documentary team had tried to trick him, and that on several occasions he
had mistakenly referred to girls and daughters when he meant boys and sons.
Female circumcision is illegal in Britain but is still practised in some
ethnic minority communities, and carried out in backstreet clinics.

5. Man charged for docking puppies' tails in New Zealand

The Dominion (Wellington, NZ) Oct 11, 2001

Puppy dog tails trial said to be a legal test case

A MAN who allegedly chopped off the tails of two puppies with a kitchen knife appeared in Lower Hutt District Court yesterday.
Arthur Pehi, of Stokes Valley, faced eight charges relating to ill-treatment, failing to alleviate pain or distress, and performing surgery without the supervision of a vet in what is believed to be the first case of its kind.
Defence Lawyer Sue Earl said docking was not illegal and the outcome of the case could have big implications for agriculture.
She said 36 million lambs were docked each year, and if the court found that docking dogs' tails was a "significant surgical procedure", new legislation might be required.
The Animal Welfare Act 1999 states that all "significant" surgery should be conducted under veterinary supervision.
"In my submission, Mr Pehi is being used purely as a guinea pig by the SPCA. They are testing the legislation, which is ambiguous. A discussion is required on words that are in the statute which are not defined."
Two charges relating to the sale or attempted sale of the puppies were withdrawn yesterday.
Judge Richard Watson said Mr Pehi would face a three-day hearing in the new year.
Outside court, prosecuting lawyer Richard Williams, representing the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said that though docking dogs' tails was not illegal, the way in which it was done might be.
A special code of practice applied to farm animals, he said.

6. Man tried to shape his son's head

Man Charged In Shaping Baby's Head CaseFather Wanted Head To Be More Like His Own

POSTED: 9:14 a.m. EST November 2, 2001

CLEVELAND -- A man accused of trying to shape his infant son's head to
look more like his own has been charged with felonious assault.

NewsChannel5 reports that Joshua Brissett, 19, pleaded innocent to the
charges that stem from using his hands to try to shape his five-month-old
son's head.

Roosevelt Worsham suffered a fractured skull. He has been placed in the
custody of relatives.

Roosevelt's mother, Shiara Worsham, has been charged with child
endangering, according to Kim Kowalski, a spokeswoman for the Cuyahoga
County prosecutor's office.

Kowalski said that Worsham saw Brissett attempting to shape the infant's
head and waited three days to take him to the hospital after he became
sick.

7. Challenges to other tissue theft

The book "Body Bazaar" by Lori Andrews and Dorothy Nelkin makes no mention of the trade in foreskins, but details other cases where tissue was taken without consent:

"...the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act gives patients control over what is done with their bodies after they die, so it seems logical they should have similar control before they die."

"Although the California Supreme Court justices refused to recognise [John] Moore's property right [in his unusual and valuable antibodies against a T-cell variant of hairy cell leukaemia], they did toss him a legal crumb: they gave him the right to sue his doctor for failure to obtain informed consent and for breach of "fiduciary duty" - the doctor's responsibility to put the patient's interest first. A physician, they held, must tell his patient if he has a personal interest unrelated to the patient's health, whether research or economic, that might affect his judgement. "A physician who adds his own research interest to this balance may be tempted to order a scientifically useful procedure or test that offers marginal, or no, benefits to the patient," wrote Judge Pancelli for the majority.

8. Man charged for voluntary castration

Castration on the kitchen table

• UNITED STATES

A TAIWANESE man has been jailed for up to four years for performing a castration in his kitchen last year.
Suo-Shan Wang, 29, was arrested in June after a man began haemorrhaging outside his home following a voluntary castration.
Authorities said that after the procedure the men shared a slice of pie at the same table on which the operation was performed.
Wang was conviced on April 4 of practising medicine without a licence and sentenced to 14 months to four years.

In handing down the sentence yesterday, circuit court judge Fred Mester said such acts "will not be tolerated in this society."
Wang, who is in the United States on a student visa, told the court he was trying to help people who were unable to get such services elsewhere, but he regretted his actions.
The man who underwent the castration wanted to curb his sex drive because he had a sexually transmitted disease, prosecutors have said.
Wang told police he learnt the skill from his grandparents. He performed his first surgery on a dog and then on the dog's owner and three of the owner's friends in Australia, prosecutors said. - AP

The Dominion Post, Wellington, New Zealand, April 28 2003

8. Taking blood

The US Supreme court issued a ruling on the scope of the 4th
Amendments' prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures.

The case
involved the non-consensual drawing of blood from an alleged drunk driver.
Justice Sotomayor noted:

The Fourth Amendment provides in relevant part that "[t]he right of the
people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants
shall issue, but upon probable cause." Our cases have held that a
warrantless search of the person is reasonable only if it falls within a
recognized exception. See, e.g., United States v. Robinson, 414 U.S. 218, 224, 94 S.Ct. 467, 38
L.Ed.2d 427 (1973).

"Such an invasion [drawing blood] of bodily integrity implicates an
individual's most personal and deep-rooted expectations of privacy." Now if
only such standards applied to infant males. Perhaps we can use the
language in future litigation as a recognition of "bodily integrity" being
part and parcel of the "deep-rooted" expectations of privacy."

The Secretary shall promulgate standards to govern the humane handling, care, treatment, and transportation of animals by dealers, research facilities, and exhibitors. ...

(2) The standards described in paragraph (1) shall include minimum
requirements - ...

In addition to the requirements under paragraph (2), the standards
described in paragraph (1) shall, with respect to animals in research facilities, include requirements -

(A) for animal care, treatment, and practices in experimental procedures
to ensure that animal pain and distress are minimized, including adequate
veterinary care with the appropriate use of anesthetic, analgesic,
tranquilizing drugs, or euthanasia;

(B) that the principal investigator considers alternatives to any
procedure likely to produce pain to or distress in an experimental animal;

(C) in any practice which could cause pain to animals -

...

(i) that a doctor of veterinary medicine is consulted in the planning of
such
procedures;

(ii) for the use of tranquilizers, analgesics, and anesthetics;

(iii) for pre-surgical and post-surgical care by laboratory workers, in
accordance with established veterinary medical and nursing procedures;

(iv) against the use of paralytics without anesthesia;

[That practice is expressly and unequivocally prohibited. Query: would a CircumstraintTM qualify as a 'paralytic agent'? At least one lawyer thinks so.]

and

(v) that the withholding of tranquilizers, anesthesia, analgesia, or
euthanasia when scientifically necessary shall continue for only the
necessary period of time;

(D) that no animal is used in more than one major operative experiment
from which it is allowed to recover except in cases of -
(i) scientific necessity; or
(ii) other special circumstances as determined by the Secretary;

and
(E) that exceptions to such standards may be made only when specified by
research protocol and that any such exception shall be detailed and
explained in a
report outlined under paragraph (7) and filed with the Institutional
Animal
Committee.

11. Mouse tails protected

After finding repeated violations of animal-treatment rules, the
University of Washington has suspended professor Chen Dong from animal testing indefinitely, an unusually severe punishment.

The violations included cutting the tips of mouse tails without
anesthesia, withholding food from mice without university approval and failing to
euthanize mice that were suffering beyond an acceptable level, according to the
university's Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee.

...

In the controversial world of animal testing, Dong's case reveals the
intense scrutiny university professors face when they experiment on animals. If a
single mouse goes hungry, the university apparently knows about it.

...

Animal-rights groups have deemed such experiments cruel and unnecessary
and have repeatedly campaigned against such research. The People for the
Ethical Treatment of Animals, for instance, calls animal experimentation a
"sadistic scandal."

...

But two months after Dong arrived, the animal-care staff started sending
reports to the animal-care committee. Some of the cages were bloody, the
technicians said, and it looked as though the tips of some mouse tails had
been cut off. Another report said that a mouse was constipated.

The university rarely allows tail tipping, but when it does, researchers
are required to use anesthesia and to control bleeding. The committee spoke to
Dong informally about proper animal-research procedures and told him he
could not continue tail tipping without getting committee approval.